I left for good the 10th time of leaving. Our choices, his abuse and other things had caused my children to be put into foster care. I went through every step to get them back and so did he but it never seemed genuine and I knew if we had gone through all that counseling etc and he was still resorting to control that he would never change and I would lose my kids forever. The night I left, he slashed the car tire while I was showering to prevent me from my planned visit with my older kids the next day…

Just because one person is evil and has hurt you, it does not mean EVERY person is out to do the same harm to you. When I rediscovered my inner and outer beauty, I began to see the beauty in everything again. The times of questioning everything and assuming the worst, became less frequent. I got new goggles to see the world and myself. It doesn't mean I happily forgot everything, I just refused to let it define me and how I view the world.

Please don’t give up on yourself. Better days are coming. You are not the who your abuser said you were. You matter. Your voice matter. Don’t hold your pain inside. Find your voice either the through journaling, therapy, or sharing online.

My progress and growth has helped me understand myself and process what has happened. I can't go back and change it, but I can speak up for myself and others. And I can also offer some encouragement along someone else's journey.

My journey has developed by me being able to be more open with those in my life and even being willing to share my story more openly. My advice is to let people in to the best of your ability. Take it as slow as you need to. Let yourself trust again and accept help around you. Build your support system.

Men - abuse can and does happen to you. Yes, women can be perpetrators. Male survivors, find your tribe - we are out here. Don't let anyone tell you that your experience doesn't matter because you are a man - that's bullshit. We believe you. I believe you. It wasn't your fault. And you can heal.

Running has been how I cope. I love running. It's an outlet and helps self confidence wise. It also helps me battle an eating disorder and self destructive habits. Socially, races bring people together. My health has impacted my ability to run as much or as often as I wish. I want the rest of my life to be the best of my life.

We were in marriage counseling for a long time and finally one therapist pulled me aside and let me know they were concerned for my safety. What they witnessed in our sessions was mild compared to what I experienced behind closed doors. They also identified that he was living with mental illness. Having their third-party perspective and a diagnosis helped me realize I wasn't just imagining the abuse and there were deeper issues than problems with communication in our marriage.

My heart hurt and I definitely grieved - on the floor sobbing - for months on end because I truly felt as though this was my person, this was someone who I thought knew me and saw me for who I truly was. But the truth was, they didn't know me. They didn't even know the color of my eyes after 2 years together. I eventually realized I was grieving a version of them that didn't exist. I was grieving the life I thought we could have, the future family, the relationship that I thought we could work towards. I also realized I was grieving myself. My self esteem was diminished, I felt a huge loss of identity, I couldn't make a decision to save my life, I was exhausted and irritable and angry. I didn't recognize myself for a very, very long time.

The people closest to me were supportive of me taking our relationship problems very seriously, but they were also quite cautious about fully endorsing the idea of divorcing – even with knowing about the repeated violence.

Reflecting back on this, I attribute their cautiousness about me divorcing both to gender-based double standards and to their Christian beliefs, which I shared. I don’t fault them for trying to help me make very, very, very sure that divorce was the right choice. However, considering that we didn’t have children, and considering how troubling her patterns of behavior were and her half-hearted demonstrations of taking responsibility for her actions, divorce was very obviously the right choice. I think that a personality disorder played a role in what I was experiencing from my ex, but at the time neither I nor the people closest to me offering advice recognized that.

I struggled with feeling worthless naturally and having someone add to that feeling of making me feel small and bad about myself was overwhelming. It made everything worse.

The abusive situations were always followed by apologies – this pattern was emotionally draining for me.

Never having been the target of a narcissist, I found myself always making excuses for his behavior. He would gaslight me so often I started to question myself.

I remember the first time so vividly. The first time he put the blame on me, the first time he made me think I was the crazy, irrational one, the first time I begged for his forgiveness. We were enjoying dinner, dancing and drinks at a local restaurant before I had to leave for a week-long work trip. There was a man who kept approaching me, making me uncomfortable and I looked at my boyfriend for support and to help get me out of the situation. My boyfriend turned it around, he blamed me as if I was asking for attention, accused me of flirting back with the man and then my boyfriend left me at the restaurant.

I tried leaving three times. The first time I stayed for a month at a friend’s place to try and make sense of the relationship. The second attempt I sought help from our church and was told to go home and be a better wife. They made it obvious that they had him on a pedestal as a non-disabled man in a relationship with a visibly disabled woman. By that point I knew that it may end in him killing me as I'd already been strangled to the point of near unconsciousness.

I was so naive; however, I didn't understand that what he had done was not consensual and was rape. We continued the relationship and to be honest, there were so many red flags looking back. But when you're in one of these relationships, you're completely clouded by all the love bombing. It's easy to miss giant red flags until it's too late, and you're so committed.

The abuse started as emotional and there was lots of mental/intellectual abuse. There was a lot of gaslighting and questioning my view of events or joking at my intelligence. My age was often used against me, he always had to be the smartest, funniest, most intelligent person in the room.

We have a son together. I knew when he was 3 years old that our marriage was over, but I didn’t want our son to come from a divorced home. I thought I could ‘act right’ enough and keep our family together. Three years later there was an incident with our son one morning and that was the last straw. My child’s heart and future were worth it (to end it), but my self-worth wasn’t. In hindsight this is very eye opening. I deserved love and respect, just like our son did.

The abuse started almost immediately with my first husband, after I had threatened to leave. I tried backing out of the wedding, but family insisted I go through with it. The screaming and yelling eventually turned physical. He was a football player with anger issues, especially if drugs or alcohol was involved.

The abuse with my second husband was much more subtle in the beginning. I can only compare it to a slow leaking faucet. The small drips, one at a time, are not alarming, but eventually those drips can fill a sink and cause damage. The abuse I suffered with him was emotional, financial, and sexual. Somehow being forced to have sex by knifepoint, no access to finances, and having to ask permission for everything, became normal.

It has been an agonizing process. I had victim brain for several months where all I wanted to do was help him. And when I finally realized the true scope of the damage he had inflicted upon me, I was sickened and outraged. I now suffer from PTSD from his actions against me and I question things constantly as to whether I am being true to myself or acting out of fear.

We were together for 12 years and I believe the abuse started slowly after the five-year mark.

The abuse took on many forms – initially the silent treatment, the put downs and name-calling, and removing all forms of intimacy.

I did not view these behaviors as abuse at the time. I thought our relationship had gone cold and we should end things. I never thought that I was in an abusive relationship.

The changes were ever so subtle. He was a very, very, clever manipulator.

You deserve love, kindness, honesty, and security. You really really do. There are good and loving people in the world. I am so grateful for my life now.

Please do not assume because someone is a social worker, calls himself an advocate, or a feminist, or even works as an advocate that he lives out these values in private. My ex was given an award by the police department for his work with homeless people the same week that he locked me outside of our house during a tornado (I had to ride it out in my car in the driveway).

I was driving us home when we were talking about it and I remember thinking how good she took the news. About that moment she took her bottle of water and hit me right between the eyes. It broke my nose and I couldn’t see. I crashed into a telephone pole and a parked car. We weren’t going fast, so the airbags didn’t go off, and she kept hitting me in the head with the full bottle. I just covered my head and took it. I don’t know for how long. The next thing I remember is her being pulled out of the vehicle and being handcuffed. Witnesses had called 911 and stayed on the phone telling them how she was beating me. A stranger intervening gave me the courage to leave.

According to the doctor (examine my bruises and head wounds, I had a severe concussion from her beating me and not the car accident.